Method of preparing dicyandiamide



Feb. 25, 1947;

J. L. osBoRNE METHOD OF PREPARING DICYANDIAMIDE Filed Deo. 19, 1944 INVENTOR' wmysmwa" ATTORN EY Patented Feb. 25, 1947 METHOD OF PREPARING DICYANDIAMIDE John L. Osborne, Elizabeth, N. J., assigner to American Cyanamid Company,

New York,

N. Y., a. corporation of Maine Application December 19, 1944, Serial No. 568,894

4 Claims. l

' will react with CO2 and the resulting carbonate or bicarbonate go into solution, where it will then readily react with CaCNz. Such a situation makes possible a better contact of the gaseous precipitation agent with the calcium cyanamide than if such agent Were used strictly in gaseous form, and consequently can result in a saving of up to 25% of the Co2.

In patent application Serial No. 568,892 it is proposed to carry out a process substantially iden tical with that of the Vpresent application employing the alkali carbonates as the CO2 carrier. In Serial No. 568,893 methyland ethylamines are employed, and in Serial No. 568,895 the ethanolamines are employed. Y

Heretofore, asdisclosed in the prior art, carbon dioxide has been used to precipitate calcium carbonate from aqueous slurries of crude calcium cyanamide.. However, such processes involve, essentially, gaseous-liquid reactions. When pure carbon dioxide is used, such reactions necessitate bulky, expensive and unusually complex mixing and diffusion apparatus in order to comminute the carbon dioxide bubbles and effect a better contact of the carbon dioxide and liquid solvent. When stack gases are used as a source of carbon dioxide in these prior processes, the disadvantages become still greater, for then the use of gaseous-liquid reactions in the preparation of,

cyanamide and dicyandiamide necessitates` the processing of large volumes of gases. This requires unusually large, bulky equipment and necessitates treatment over extended time intervals. The operation of such processes as disclosed in the prior art is accordingly quite inefficient, principally becauseV of the low solubility of carbon dioxide in water. Furthermore, these prior processes also fail to overcome the disadvantages attendant upon the low solubility of lime and calcium cyanamide in the water used to make up the aqueous slurry.. y f

' YThe present process'involves a novel method 'of facilitating the reaction between carbon dioxide and crude calcium cyanamide slurries. It relates to a simple process for bringing about the better solution of carbon dioxide in the Water forming the slurry.y Thus, it has been found that by the addition of a suitable water soluble compound capable of carrying carbon dioxide in combination` there is effected what is essentially a marked increase in the solubility of carbon dioxide. Furthermore the reaction of Co2 and calcium cyanamide is completed more eiiiciently. This is due to the fact that the process is effected as a liquid to liquid rather than as a gas to liquid type of reaction. The solubilizing of the carbon dioxide converts the latter into a more readily available condition, diffused throughout the liquid, and hence effects the reaction as one closely approximating an ideal liquid to liquid type of contact.

These novel featuresin the process of the present invention make possible the use of smaller,` less complicated apparatus'. The present' process also shortens the time necessary to complete the reaction of carbon dioxide with the lime and the CaCN2. At the same time it makes possible the use of lower pressures of carbon dioxide-while eiecting a greater concentration oi carbon dioxide in solution. This results in a more eiiicient' process and a more uniform quality of product. Among the compounds capable of reacting in this manner are the following: the alkali metal carbonates, such as sodium and potassium carbonate, guanidine and guanylurea both as such and as their carbonates, the ethanolamines vsuch as'the mono, di and tri forms, and also the alkyl amines such las the mono and poly methyl and ethyl amines.l l

More specifically, in accordance with one einbodiment of this invention, it is proposed that guanylurea or its carbonate be dissolved in the liquor used to extract cyanamide from the crude calcium cyanamide slurry and that carbon dioxide be passed into the resultant slurry.` `It will be found that the carrier serves to dissolve CO2 and react therewith, and also accelerate ,the formation of calcium carbonate. The carrier in the form of the bicarbonate reacts with the calcium of the crude calcium cyanamide. ,It also reacts with the lime which is present' in the slurry as calcium hydroxide. This reforms the carrier carbonate and a precipitate oi calciumV carbonate.

The carrier solution formed adsorbs additionalA carbon dioxide at a veryrapidrate, reforming guanylurea bicarbonate which then reactswith the'calclum acid cyanamide in the extraction liquor. This yields calcium carbonate as a precipitate and free cyanamide. This solution may be then concentrated as by evaporation, and any cyanamide therein not already polymerized, polymerizes to form dicyandiamide which is readily extracted by iiltration.

It is to be noted that the use f the process.

of this invention not only makes possible a greater concentration of carbon dioxide in the slurry but also results in the presence of carbon dioxideI in a more readily reacting form than the usual gaseous state. This is due to the. addition to the slurry of the above mentioned compounds. All of these compounds have a high afnity for carbon dioxide which is heldV in combination therewith. Hence these are capable of serving as carriers of carbon dioxide held in combination and readily available for further reaction as with the calcium of the slurry. These compounds make possible a more complete absorption and solution of carbon dioxide in the mother liquor than could be effectedii the carbon dioxide Were bubbled through a slurry containing no such carrier compounds. Furthermore with these compounds present, the carbon dioxide need be under little or no pressure in order to obtain a .high concentration of available carbon dioxide. Heretofore equally high concentrations of carbon dioxide could be attained only by using carbon dioxide under several atmospheres pressure. Because of the low pressure solubilizing step characteristic of the process of this invention, it is unnecessary to carry out the process in such expensive air-tight autoclaves and pressure vessels as heretofore used.

The accompanying flow sheet diagrammatically illustrates a preferred embodiment of the invention. As shown, a quantity of an aqueous solution of the carbon dioxide carrier and crude calcium cyanamide in proper proportions and concentrations is worked up into a slurry with water, or with a recycled portionV of the mother or Wash liquor from a previous batch. The mixing tank is heated or cooled in order to maintain the temperature within optimum limits so as to obtain desirable yields and avoid excessive decom-l position due to side reactions which result in the production of NH3, urea and the like. The slurry may be prepared in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide under superatmospheric pressure in an autoclave or, alternatively, carbon dioxide is bubbled through the slurry at atmospheric pressure.

, The reactants are mixed, preferably, for an additional time interval in a second tank `to increase the extraction of the calcium cyanamide after which the slurry is ltered. In order to increase the concentration of nitrogen present in the form of cyanamide and later as dicyandi- Y amide, the mother liquor forming the clear vrfiltrate is recycled a number of times and reslurried with additional portions of crude calcium cyanamide, the combined recycled mixture being then nally filtered. When the. mother liquor attains its optimum concentration of cyanamide or dicyandiamide it is withdrawn through the by-pass for further treatment. After a predetermined number of recycling steps including the reslurrying of the filter cake, the lter cake remaining as a sludge in the final filtration step is washed with av small `amount of wash liquor in order to remove the greater portion of the entrained'carbon ldioxide carrier leftV therein. .This Wash liquor is recycled to forman aliquot part of a new batch or slurry of calcium cyanamide. The sludge remaining inV the lter is removed from theV system it may be preferable to by scraping the filter plates clean of the spent sludge. A new slurryis then prepared as above described, the cycling and recycling steps are carried out again terminating in a nal ltration and removal from the extraction cycie of the mother liquor containing its optimum concentration of cyanamide and high in dicyandiamide or the reverse. The former situation is a highly desirable one inasmuch as by building up the content of dicyandiamide in the mother liquor, that is, by polymerization of the cyanamide to dicyandiamide, as the former is freed from calcium cyanamide, the liquor going through the bypass will contain Amore and more dicyandiamide making evaporation at this stage unnecessary. That dicyandiamide can be built up in the mother liquor .will be apparent when it is considered that the liquor at this stage is o suiiciently high alkalinity and temperature to facilitate polymerization of the cyanamide to dicyandiamide. This situation will be more fully discussed hereinafter.

In addition' to the above batch process, the process can be readily eected by continuously drawing off a fractional part of the mother liquor or concentrate through the by-pass for further special treatment. The remaining portion is returned or recycled to the iirst tank Where more crude calcium cyanamide and carbon dioxide as well as wash liquor and mother liquor from other sources, as shown, can be added to maintain the recycling volume constant.

The mother liquor withdrawn through the bypass may be concentrated in an evaporator, preferably by lc-W temperature vacuum distillation, to remove the excess water. The Vcarbon dioxide held in combination by the carrier is simultaneously evolved with the result that the alkalinity of the solution may be increased to that of a solution having a p-H of 11.0 or thereabouts, whereupon practically all of the cyanamide polymerizes to dicyandiamide. The dicyandiamide, containing perhaps a small amount of cyanamide in the entrained liquor, is readily separated out by cooling and filtering the solution. The mother liquor forming the filtrate is recycled as shown to form a new slurry. If contaminated unduly with decomposition products, such as urea for example,

discardY this iiltrate periodically.

When vacuum evaporation of the ley-passed mother liquor is conducted at a low temperature, i. e., about 30 C. to 35 C., most of the cyanamide present polymerizes to `form dicyandiamide due tothe high alkalinity of the solution Any remaining free cyanamide subsequently polymerizes on storage. However, if complete conversion of the cyanamide to dicyandiamide is desired'irnmediately, the evaporation step may be omitted, particularly if the Solution is stronger than about 10 or 12%. Thus, if the solution has a concentration of 15% or higher, it is not necessary to evaporate it further. Instead polymerization can be carried out by a carefully controlled heating step here which effects a conversion of the cyanamide to dieyandiamide. The dicyandiamide separates out in crystalline form and isI cyanamide, and prior to ley-passing the mother liquor totherecover'y system as above set forth,VA

the following is an important consideration.

It would of course. be desirable to operate the cycle under suchconditioiis that most, if not all,

'ofthe cyanamide went'directly to dicyandiamlde reasonably as fast as the cyanamide was free, maintaining enough water in the system to .keep the dicyanadiamide in solution so that when .the final liquor reached the evaporator the dicyandiamide could be recovered therefrom either by evaporation or chilling or both. l

The above may be readily yaccomplished by maintaining the pH of the system at 7.0 or above.

While high temperatures are desirable -in order to increase the rate of Ipolymerization of cyanamide to dicyandiamide, yet the temperature is not as important as the pH.

It will be apparent that as the calciumcyanamide is fed to the mixing tank the pH has a tendency to rise, whereas when the CO2 is fed to the mixing tank the pH has a tendency to fall. Thus, it is a simplevmatter, by judicious control of these two reactants, to maintain the pH between '7.0 and 12.0 so as to maintain desirable cyanamide polymerizing conditions. This can be very simply accomplished by keeping the calcium cyanamide feed ahead of the carbon dioxide feed. The temperature of the extraction cycle may be maintained at from C. to boiling, the exact ligure depending upon the existing pH. For a given pH within the desired range, the higher the temperature, the faster the polymerization. At the same time, if -operating conditions requireav stated temperature, the pH may be adjusted accordingly. 1

For instance, where the temperature of the reaction mass is C. cyanamide may be readily converted to dicyandiamide at a pH of 9.6 while at higher temperature such as 80 C. the optimum pH is about 9. At boiling temperaturesthe pH may drop as low as 8 while still obtaining polymerization of cyanamide to dicyandiamide at good rates. l' The increase in temperature yto increase the rate of polymerization can be very easily accomplished where flue gases are used as a source Vof carbon dioxide since such gas as discharged from a boiler plant will generally be at a temperature of 204 C. or higher. Thus the sensible heat of such gases may be used to raise the temperature of the reaction mass and to supplement if necessary the heat-evolved there. In the event that the temperature in the mixing tank tends to rise to undue heights, this can be readily'coni' f trolled by proper cooling of the stack gases. Inasmuch as such gases contain carbon dioxide gen-g erally to the extent of about 12%, the other constituents being in the nature of diluents, a large volume of gas may be passed through the magma in the mixing tank so as to accurately control the temperature desired there.

Generally speaking, optimum quantities of cyanamide may be released from a calcium cyanamide slurry in the presence of CO2 where the pH is maintained no lower than '7.0 and preferably from 8.0 to il or slightly higher withV a temperature of from 30 C. to boiling. A rise in temperature for any given pH will, of course, increase the speed of polymerization and as the temperature rises the pH may be decreased toward '7.0 while still maintaining the same polymerization rate.

vUnder these circumstances, `it is desirable to maintain suicient water in the system to keep all of the dicyanamide formed in lsolution plus a slight excess so that there will be no loss of dicyandiamide values during the normal and expected-I temperature drop of the mother liquor as it passes through the filter.

Thus it is entirely possible to maintain the cycle under such conditions of pH andA temperature that there will be little'or no cyanamide going through the by-pass but on the contrary thisby-passed mother liquor will be almost exclusively a desirably high concentration of aqueous dicyandiamide solution containing a minimum quantity of undesirable decomposition products such as urea. Under these circumstances, a `simple evaporation and/or chilling will precipitate dicyandiamide from such clear solutions in good purity which may be filtered from the mother liquor and recovered as such. The mother liquor from the dicyandiamide recovery system may then be returned to the cycle as indicated.

Only a small amount of the carrier is lost from the system by failure to Wash the iirst filter cake. Another small portion of the carrier may be lost by failure to wash the final filter cake. However, by flushing these iilter cakes with wash water the carrier therein is easily removed. Thus, the entrained carrier may be removed from the iinal product by washing it out of .the lter cake with a small portion of Water and simultaneously leaving the relatively insoluble dicyandiamide on the filter. Hence it is unnecessary to renew the entire supply of the carrier for each extraction. Instead, .the addition'of a small portion of the carrier or an aqueous solution thereof to the recycled mother liquor at intervals during theI process or after each extraction cycle is ample to increase the concentration of the carrier in the mother liquor sufficiently for effective re-use upon further addition of carbon dioxide.

' Due to the inclusion of a filter in the extraction and/or conversion cycle, the solids are being continuously removed. Thus any desirable concentration of'solubles up to and just short of saturation in .the liquor for any desirable Working temperature may be had without making the recycle'magma unhandleable due to solids.

The reactions involved may be briefly represented by the following equations when sodium carbonate is used as the carbon dioxide car- The sodium bicarbonate formed serves as a highlyv accessible source of carbon dioxide and reacts with .the crude calcium cyanamide to precipitate calcium carbonate as follows:

Sodium carbonate is thus reformed and is -in condition to reactl immediately with the incoming carbon dioxide to give the bicarbonate and continue the precipitation of more calcium.

The corresponding equations occur when potassium carbonate, guanidine, guanylurea, either added as such or used as the carbonate, ethanolamine such as mono, di or tri ethanolamina mono, di or tri methyl or ethyl amine, and the like, are used as the carbon dioxide carrier.

, The following examples are given to more clearly illustrate the process involved.

Example 1 1.000 parts of water, 250 parts of crude calcium cyanamide and 50 parts of guanylurea carbonate are worked up into a slurry and sufficient carbon dioxide, say parts, added thereto to precipitate the calcium and to react with the lguanylurea carbonate and give a guanylurea bicarbonate solution lhaving a pH of about. 8.0. The resulting slurry is mixed further in another mixing kettle and then filtered. The filtrate is evaporated at a temperature below 35 C., cooled and the crystalline precipitate, predominantly dicyandiamide contaminated with such small amounts of cyanamide as are present in the en-l trained liquor, recovered by ltration. n

Example 2 Eample 3 100 parts of crude calcium cyanamide are gradually fed into a 300 part mixture of wash water containing guanylurea carbonate and mother liquor containing guanylurea carbonate from a previous batch extraction. The slurry is fortified with about 1 part of guanylurea carbonate and 50 parts of carbon dioxide are simultaneously supplied while maintaining the pI-I at 8.4 and keeping the temperature below 35" C. The resulting. slurry is passed to another mixing kettle and then ltered. About 275 parts of filtrate are obtained containing from 10% to 12% of cyanamide. The sludge on the lter is washed and the wash Water recycled to form part of a new batch. Due to the low concentration of values in the filtrate, the latter is further evaporated under vacuum and below 35 C. until crystals begin to form whereupon the liquid is chilled and filtered. The yield is predominantly dicyandiamide, the cyanamide which first formed having polymerized ito dicyandiarnide, because of the increased pH. The filtrate is recycled to form the mother liquor for the next batch.

Example 4 A batch similar to that described in Example 3 is subjected to the same series of steps to obtain In order to a corresponding 275 'part filtrate. obtain a practically complete conversion to dicyandiamide, the solution of cyanamide comprising the 275 part iiltrate is evaporated at a temperature of about 70 C., although other temperatures can also be used up to boiling. An alkaline solution is formed by the evolution of CO2 from 'the carrier solution. This results in a solution having a pH between 8.4 and 11.4, when the higher temperatures above given are used to accelerate the polymerization of the cyanamide to dicyandiamide. Since the latter is relatively insoluble in the cooled mother liquor, the dicyandiamide is readily separated by ltering the crystalline precipitate. The filtrate is then recycled to form another slurry of calcium cyanamide for subsequent extraction.

The extraction step of the process described in the preceding examples is preferably carried out at a pI-I of approximately 8.4. Various changes may, however, be made'in the particular steps, thus for example, if stack gases are used as the source of carbon dioxide it may be preferable to strip the CO2 from the stack gases with an aqueous solution of a carrier and thereafter admix the carrier solution with the slurry, thereby precipitating CaCOa, the whole mixture being led directly into the rst mixing tank.

A feature of this invention is the'relatively complete control of the process and the relatively rapid initiation of the reaction obtained 'by the use'of guanylurea or its carbonate or a similar CO2 carrier.

When the above examples are repeated Without the 'use of a CO2 carrier substantially longer periods of time are required to elect the calcium precipitation. Also due to the lesser speed of absorption of CO2 without the carrier, proportionately more CO2 is required because more CO2 passes through .the slurry unabsorbed.

In the example given, Na2CO3, KzCOa, guanidine either as such or as its carbonate, guanylurea or an ethanolamine or alkyl amine can be used in place of guanylurea carbonate. In each instance dilute solutions of the respective carbon dioxide carriers of from 3% to 5% or even 10% strength fall in a desirable range.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of preparing dicyandiamide which includes slurrying calcium cyanamide in the presence of CO2 and ar substance chosen from the group consisting of guanylurea and guanylurea carbonate, in suillcient water to maintain all the dicyandiamide formed in solution, maintaining a pH between '7.0 and 12.0 and a -temperature between 30 C. and boiling, whereby calcium cyanamide is converted to calcium carbonate and dicyandiamide, separating'the calcium Carbonate from the mother liquor and recovering the dicyandiamide from the latter.

2. A method of preparing dicyandiamide which includes slurrying calcium cyanamide in the presence of CO2 and a substance chosen from the group consisting of guanylurea and guanylurea carbonate, in suiiicient water to maintain all the dicyandiamide formed in solution, maintaining the pH between 7.0 and 12.0 and the temperature between 30 C. and boiling, separating out the calcium solids, recirculating the mother liquor therefrom with fresh additions of calcium cyanamide and CO2, iiltering out the solids with each recirculation until the mother liquor from y the solids removal is just short of saturation with dicyandiamide, and removing the latter therefrom.

3. A method of preparing dicyandiamide which includes slurrying calcium cyanarnide in the presence of CO2 and guanylurea carbonate, with sufcient water to maintain all the dicyandiamide formed in solution,r maintaining the pH between 7.0 and 12.0 and the temperature between-30 C. and boiling, filtering out the solids, recirculating the mother liquor with fresh additions of calcium cyanamide and CO2 until the mother liquor from the solids removal is just short of saturation with dicyandiamide, and removing the latter therefrom.

V4. The method of claim 3 with the additional step of recirculating the dicyandiamide mother liquor to the cycle.

JOHN L. OSBORNE.

REFERENCES CITED UNITED STATES PATENTS Name Date Osborne Dec. 2l, 1943 Number 

